Diamond in the Ruff

Robin Rice on Visual Art: "Dog Heaven" at Locks Gallery


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Published: Nov 25, 2008

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Most members of Philadelphia's straggling, complex art community have good things to say about Sarah McEneaney's autobiographical paintings. Even people who might easily covet her considerable success admire her. This respect certainly reflects McEneaney's genuine niceness on a personal level, but it's even more a tribute to the unglamorized, undramatized and paradoxically egoless integrity of her work.

In her paintings, she is so uniquely, even relentlessly — and sometimes literally — nakedly herself, that a rival's envy can't come into the picture. Empathy, yes; envy, no. McEneaney's paintings are all about herself: her life, her studios, her home, sometimes her travels, her struggles, her moments of contentment, and always her dogs and cats.

A fondness for companion creatures has sunk many an artist in the soppy seas of sentiment, but McEneaney almost always steers deftly between the Scylla of cutesy and the Charybdis of schmaltz. There are lots of idealized moments in her first show at Locks Gallery, but Dog Heaven, the title painting (pictured, detail), is the only full-on fantasy. Here, in the ostentatiously identified "TRESTLETOWN DOG HEAVEN," departed dogs frolic and snooze on an über green lawn. Outside the high stone supporting walls, slightly miniaturized visions of McEneaney and her dog stroll black city streets together.

The paintings' narratives usually fall somewhere between a snapshot and a kind of iconic summation of a particular mood or experience. Many focus on the specifics of a scene almost diagrammatically. Here is how paint spatters on the floor of the studio. Here we see one painting (actually in the current exhibition) displayed on the painted studio wall of another. Here are pets sleeping in their characteristic postures. Here is the "Obama for President" poster that will always show when this painting was made.

McEneaney typically works in the persnickety medium of egg tempera, although there are some gouaches in this show. Her line and transitions are not fluid, not graceful. Her compositions are OK but rarely thrilling or memorable in themselves. McEneaney seemingly wrestles with drawing, but no doubt this is an illusion. Her drawing has changed little over the years; she must be satisfied with it.

Perhaps the painstaking schematic quality of building interiors and exteriors is a product of McEneaney's work as a carpenter. The point of view is always high, above eye level. Architectural perspectives are internally consistent but exaggerated and proportioned to show more ceiling and more wall area than the eye actually takes in. Whatever its source, this quality reflects the diagramatic character of the entire painting. The scene may look casually specific, but in most cases it represents many isomorphic moments, or an array of thoughts about a singular one.

In a more sensual vein, color carries the burden of feeling in McEneaney's paintings. In some earlier pieces, murky or harsh colors recorded her worst experiences, but in this idyllic body of work the palette is vivid, often tropical and saturated. Red floors, blue skies and yellow walls may not be quite as brilliant in real life, but we know what these choices mean.

Likewise, her representations of her own face (there's a large self-portrait head in the show and other images of herself, as well) are not grounded in the solidity of the skull or musculature. Nevertheless, McEneaney is showing us reality: her vision without grandiosity or self-pity. That's the most any of us can do.

Ellen Harvey has the second floor of Locks Gallery, showing works relating to framing and presentation. The most ambitious, the installation Room of Sublime Wallpaper, is striking and provocative. The "room," 12 feet square with walls 8 feet high, stands gauchely in the middle of the gallery. You walk through a door toward a wall of mirrors — not like Versailles, but almost a quilt of square and rectangular mirrors angled to reflect parts of the large, well-executed sublime landscape painting behind you. Harvey's musings on the meaning of representation and perception are engaging enough not to be annoying.

(r_rice@citypaper.net)

"Dog Heaven" | Through Dec. 20, Locks Gallery, 600 Washington Square South, 215-629-1000, locksgallery.com